<p align="center" <img src="assets/brand/vela-readme-hero.jpg" width="960" alt="Vela connects exact scientific evidence, verification, decisions, and standing through Git history." </p
<h1 align="center"Vela</h1
<p align="center" <strongVersion control for living science.</strong </p
<p align="center" <a href="https://www.vela.space"Website</a · <a href="https://app.vela.space"Observatory</a · <a href="docs/QUICKSTART.md"Quickstart</a · <a href="docs/ARCHITECTURE.md"Architecture</a · <a href="docs/PROTOCOL.md"Protocol</a · <a href="docs/THREATMODEL.md"Security</a </p
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Research already has tools for code, papers, data, proofs, and computation. Vela turns the state between them into a living map: what is known, contested, missing, and ready to attempt next; what exact evidence bears on each Claim; what was independently checked; what a named Frontier decided; and what a later researcher can safely inherit.
Vela is a Git-native protocol and CLI for governed, replayable scientific-state transitions. Its product loop is:
map -> target -> run -> verify -> commit -> compoundWork can run anywhere. Checks remain scoped. Only an authorized Decision changes Standing. The accepted result, correction, or retained failed route then becomes a stronger starting point for the next person or agent.
The product hierarchy is deliberate:
protocol integrity layer
map user-facing product
movement measurable outcomeThe protocol is useful when it makes a Frontier legible and helps the next valid scientific action improve after a result, correction, or useful failure. Record count, graph size, workflow completion, and model activity are not product success.
Its long-range direction is a federated inheritance layer for science: different workbenches can produce evidence, different verifiers can report scoped checks, and each Frontier can decide and replay its own state without a hosted authority or universal ontology.
Native systems remain sovereign. Lean checks Lean proofs, Lake resolves Lean packages, Git preserves bytes and ancestry, and external activity recorders may preserve sessions. Vela binds exact native objects and governs only the bounded transition into locally accepted, correction-aware state.
With Vela you can:
- inspect one scientific state from exact Git bytes and full roots;
- map an unresolved gap into bounded work without receiving authority;
- submit portable, authenticated evidence;
- retain verifier observations without treating them as acceptance;
- make one exact authorized Decision; and
- replay how every Claim reached its current Standing and what can safely
happen next.